----"Adspice quanta
Voce negat quae sit ficti constantia vultus!"--JUV. _Sat._ vii.
We cut our pen afresh to say a few words concerning that arch-impostor,
that "Fourbum imperator," Coco the coiner. Had it not been for the
_prosperity_ of the St Angelo ministry at Naples, that three-headed
Cerberus of iniquity, of whom the people,
"Tre Angeli a noi piu recan danno
Che trenta orrendi Demoni non fanno,"
had it not been that _their_ success seemed to militate against such an
inference, we might have supposed that Coco, poor, starving, and in
utter disesteem, had been thus let to live, to prove by a sad contrast
the truth of the old adage--that "honesty is the best policy." Coco is
the very impersonation of wiliness and subtlety--a fox amongst
foxes--the Metternich of his craft;--he has cheated every dealer in
turn, and by turns has learnt to know the internal arrangements of every
prison throughout the kingdom. By sheer force of talent he has been
able, like Napoleon, to maintain his cause single-handed against a host
of rivals who would crush him, and cannot; and, whenever he is not
_closeted elsewhere_, he is either holding a privy council with St
Angelo, or transacting busines with his Serene Highness of Salerno,
against whom (_par parenthese_) we have not a word to say. Cicero's
oration for Milo is not better than Coco's oration for Coco; and to hear
him plead it personally for the first time, is certainly entertaining.
He seems to have taken _that_ oration for his model, setting out, as
Tully for that client did, with a staunch negation of the charges
alleged against him; but embarrassed, as he proceeds in his harangue, to
maintain himself strictly honest, he gradually throws off reserve,
converts your room into a court of justice, and, confronting imaginary
accusers, endeavours to shake their testimony by making out that they
are just as great rogues as himself! "Coco! say over again just half a
dozen of _those sentences_--you know where to begin--that you have so
often been the habit of indulging me with; not the _whole_ speech, Coco,
if you please." "Eccelenza, no! I was saying, then, that I was in
advance of my age, and that, if I had been born in France or England in
place of Naples, I should not now have been called Coco the cheat, the
thief, the _birbone_, but _Sir_ Coco--or Monsieur le Marquis de Cocon.
Look at the things I have done, sir, and see what they have done for
me. No sooner have I devised some new _galanteria_--elegant, classical,
and sure to take--when it is enough to whisper '_Coco's_,' to bring it
into discredit: a great outcry is raised against me as its author, and,
like a second Galileo, I am cast into prison! Knowledge is not power at
Naples; for my countrymen know that I have knowledge enough when I mulct
their ignorance, as I sometimes do. It is _too much_ knowledge that has
brought me into all my scrapes and difficulties! Do you doubt it,
signor? Why, then, was I _first_ sent to prison?--why, but because my
mint was frequently preferred to that of his majesty here, and he feared
lest _my_ Ferdinands should drive _his_ Ferdinands out of the market!
Had I done the same in England, I suppose they would, on discovering my
talent, have made me master of their mint, in place of sending me to
expiate my offence in a dungeon--_basta_ about that affair!--but when I
had given up making Ferdinands, and took to minting _Domitians_, what
business was that to the King of Naples, I wonder, unless indeed I had
put _his_ name to that tyrant's _head_? Yet he sent me a second time to
prison for it, notwithstanding for which in return I have taken the
liberty of sending him to a warmer place. See, here's a pretty
baioccho--Ferdinand's head on one side, and a '_concordia-Augustorum_'
on the other, where the devil and he are holding hands over a lighted
altar, he wanting to withdraw his hand,--but the devil's clutch is too
tight for that!--whilst a little imp is putting a bit of live coal into
his palm, and another is doing the same under his right foot! For four
elegant horses in bronze, of which _I forgot the age_, and sold them to
St Angelo as _antiques_, I was sent to prison again, and a third time.
Though, when it suited _him_ last year to sell off certain old
horseflesh that had been many years on his hands as _young_, _his_
purchaser of course got no redress. Out upon that old Birbone! with his
galleries, his harems, and his horses;--but he eats too much, and is
never well,--a great consolation to me, who might else have repined at
his successes; but when I compare my _health_ with his, I bless the good
St Januario who keeps me poor! Again, I ought to be grateful to our good
Saint that, though men may pretend that I lie and cheat, (which perhaps
I do a little,) you never heard any body say of _me_, what all the world
says of HIM, that I am _cruel_,--_mai_, you never heard that; and if I
make money occasionally in some way that it don't _sound_ well to speak
of, what then? I never hoard it up, the lottery office is my banker, and
it circulates again presently. And as to cheating, if we look it boldly
in the face, and see in what company we cheat, why should I be ashamed
of what all the world does here from King Ferdinand, to Beppo Tuzzi of
the Mergellina? Didn't Ferdinand try hard to cheat you last year in the
sulphur question? and would he not have succeeded, too, unless you had
thought of mixing up the sulphur with some nitre and charcoal, and of
converting it into a _question of gunpowder_!" "That's true, Coco! and
now tell us of your last device for raising the wind." "Here it is," and
Coco has presented us with a small opaque lachrymatory, glistening all
over in the exquisite irridescence of old glass. "Was it not beautiful?"
he enquired. "Yes; and ancient as well," replied we; "the decomposition
of the glass showed that, and the elegant and classical form of the
vessel showed it too." "Well! he would manufacture just such another
before us, if we would like to see it done!" "_Come?_ we should be
delighted!" "_Dunque e fatto subito_, now that I have _shown how_ it is
to be effected--just as when that great sea-captain, _quel famoso
Cristoforo Colombo_"--"Yes, yes! Coco, never mind about _him_ just now."
"Ah, your excellency, I perceive, knows the story! Well, here you see is
a small clay vessel moulded from the antique; here a small packet which
I untie; and here a little gum-water in a phial." We require no other
materials--a child might do the rest. In the packet now open, we remark
a quantity of a beautiful, many-coloured glass-dust, in the midst of
which appear thousands of filmy flakes that have been scraped off from
the sides of old lachrymatories, and present every hue of colour. In a
twinkling Coco has _gummed_ the vessel all over, and in less than a
minute he has rolled round its sides a rainbow robe of the most rich and
glowing colours, while not a speck of clay remains visible by which to
make out the fraud! "_Eccolo!_" says he, placing the beautiful
fabrication in our hand; "_Eccolo!_ do you think that for such a work as
_that_ I ought to have been sent for the twentieth time to prison?"
Fearful of having our moral sense dazzled _by the glass_ into making
some indiscreet admission, we now change the theme. We had heard that
morning a good story; it was "the case of Coco _versus_ Casanuova," in
which the cleverness of the former rogue had prevailed against his
equally astute rival, who had himself been so obliging as to favour us
with the full particulars thereof, in words like the
following:--"Coco--(you know Coco?")--(Coco and I smiled, for we knew
each other perfectly,)--"Well, he presents himself one day before me in
a shop in the Piazza degli Orefici, bringing in a coin in his hand,
which he throws down carelessly on the counter, asking me what price he
should put upon it? On taking it up, I see '[Greek: Yelion],' which,
with the common type of the Velian Lion, as we all know, _vale poco_;
but, in place of a lion, this had the Athenian _diota_ (or two-eared
_amphora_) upon the field of the reverse. Knowing that the rogue was
eyeing me to see how I liked it, in order that he might charge for it
accordingly, I asked him doubtingly whether _he_ was quite sure it was
genuine, (_entertaining no doubt on that subject myself._) 'Rather an
ingenious question for a profound connossieur like Casanuova, to put to
a poor devil who has the good fortune for once in his life to buy
something good. _You_ have no doubt about it; but if you say you have, I
will take it to Tuzzi, and get his opinion first.' Fearing to lose it if
he did, I confessed that I believed it genuine, and then asked him his
price. 'He had _refused_ fifty; we might have it at seventy dollars.' Of
course I 'was astonished,' and offered 'forty--Would that do?' No!
_honest_ men had but one price; seventy he had said--seventy, he
repeated, was the price.' I bought it, and paid for it and took it home,
and consulted my books, and _there_ there was no such type to be
seen--learned friends who called upon me had never seen its fellow--it
was pronounced an _inedited_ coin, as indeed it turned out afterwards to
be! The annual meeting of our archaeological society was at hand. I
determined to _memorialize_ my coin, and to read my memoir at the
meeting. In three weeks I had finished my labours. There were some
striking conjectures in the paper, which I went early to deliver. We had
waited half an hour for the Prince St Georgio. At last he came. 'Look!'
said I, putting the coin into his hands, (and I said not a word beyond
this.) Mightily pleased he seemed with it _at once_, looking from me to
it and from it to me. I thought he was going to propose for it. At last
he spoke--it was but a word; but his emphasis and accent made my ears
tingle. '_Excellent!_' said he; but I was reassured on hearing him add,
'Casanuova has the luck of St Angelo, and nobody ever took him in.'
Relieved by this announcement, I could now afford to be modest, and said
it was but by accident that I had _first_ seen the coin. '_Not first_,
Casanuova," said the prince--'but second, I _believe_. I saw it
_first_.' '_You!_' said I, aghast; 'you saw this coin, and did not buy
it?' '_Costava!_ it cost too much; besides, to tell you the truth,
_Coco, who had just made it_, told me it was expressly intended for the
cabinet of _quel dottissimo suo amico J. Battista Casanuova_.'" "'Tis
all true," said Coco, rubbing his hands; "and I believe I can do almost
any thing I _like_ with any of them." "Except not to tell lies, and not
to impose upon antiquaries?" "_Caro lei!_ these are the very things I
like to _do most_, and do accordingly."
"What has become of Coco?" asked we of an _orefice, three years later_,
on finding ourselves a second time in Naples, and nothing doubting, as
he had not been to visit us, that he was doing Baron Trenck, and
exercising his ingenuity in prison. We were surprised, therefore, to
learn that he now kept a smart shop, and was a sort of joint householder
with a respectable man, and that nothing particular had occurred to
tarnish his reputation for now nearly a year! The shop we had already
noticed as one of promise on the outside; for, as yet, we had not found
time to visit its interior. It stood half-way up the Toledo, on the left
hand side as you go to the Studii. Etruscan jars were painted on all the
shutters, and bits of statues and bas-reliefs _bossaged_ and projected
from the house front. In face of each window was an enormous shelving
tray, full of all sorts of odds and ends, from the Flood downwards, the
whole under protection of a strong iron _grillage_. In one corner of the
shop (we had _now_ gone forth to visit it) sat a pretty young woman, in
spectacles, reading Manzoni, or sleeping over him (the aforesaid
spectacles prevented our noticing which) as he lay open in her lap;
while on another chair, in the opposite corner, an old man, almost in
his dotage, looked wistfully round his shop, not suppressing an anxious
sigh when the scrutiny was done. In an inner room of _his_ palace--for
such, in derision of its owner, was the house called--busy in preparing
and cleaning the specimens that were about to be transferred into the
shop, lurked, like some keen-eyed tarantula, the industrious _Coco_
himself, with such an eye to business, and such an ear, that we were no
sooner turned in from the street than he, too, had turned in, and was
beside us.--"Well, Coco, _bon giorrio_, &c. &c. &c., 'tis said you have
become an _honest_ man at last; how does this _new_ trade answer?" "Not
at all," sighed the old man behind us. "Nonsense!" rejoined Coco;
"whoever heard of a man's making money all at once? Nothing stake,
nothing make--there's no mending where there's no spending. '_Necesse
est facere sumptum qui quaerit lucrum_, dice bene il Plauto.'" "Allegro
though you be, Coco, I am not. With you nothing can go ill, for you have
nothing to lose, either in money or in character; but to me, who am old,
bankruptcy and a prison are not matters of jest." "Nonsense, again, you
are not going to prison _yet_!" "Not _at all_, I hope, Coco," said the
poor little lazy woman in the corner. "If I had my 5000 ducats, and my
vineyard, again, at Sorrento, that you persuaded me to sell for your
_Scavi_ at Calvi, which never brought me any thing but a few lamps, and
_lots of lachrymatories_!" "Basta, 'tis too late to talk about what you
_would do_ if you had it to do over again. Let bygones be bygones. Who
knows what this gentleman may come to buy of us? and he never would have
come to you but from his previous acquaintance with _me_. Isn't it so,
sir? Ah, there are some pretty things _there_," continued he, following
our eyes into a placarded recess. "Antichi Sono?" and we look into his
face; "I'd as lief sell my own flesh and blood, as any thing _here_ that
was not. Think, sir, of my position. I am the _responsible_ head of this
firm. That good old gentleman, having begun antiquities late in life,
does not know much about them. The signora there has taste, plenty; but
it is not a lady's business to know the prices of things she may value
or take an interest in; for suppose, now, she should wish to make money
by the sale of _Coco_, she would hardly know what to ask for him." The
old man fidgeted; Coco shot a glance at the blue spectacles, which were
raised at this sally. But the signora, who sat behind them, said
nothing. "Whence came these same things?" we inquire, for on going close
up to them, they seemed not unfamiliar to us. Before Coco could coin the
forthcoming lie, the old man had told us whence they came. "From
Baroni's shop!" adding that they had cost 700 ducats. This confirmed the
story we had heard from the beginning to its end. Our clever scoundrel
had contrived, it seems, to engage the old man in a speculative
excavation at Calvi; from which a few lachrymatories turning up, the old
man's cupidity was excited; and, on the false representations made to
him by Coco, he sold his estate; left the country; and hiring the
expensive shop in which we see him, _leaves Coco to stock it_! which he
does by the purchase of such merchandise as _his friends_ have to
dispose of--"When," says he, "they don't sell them too dear!" The old
man admits that his employer is very clever; but says quietly, that he
has not much _fiducia_ in his honesty. Coco says, on his side, that his
employer is mean in his conduct towards him, and pays his activity and
zeal in a very niggardly manner. Thus neither is satisfied with the
other. Meantime the public are saying, that in less than a year the shop
will be again for sale; that Coco will have bolted; and that the old
man, if he be alive, will be fretting his soul out in St Elmo! Nobody
speculates upon what is to become of the lady with the blue spectacles.
_We_ predict, that should she be alive, and the old man dead, in the
course of another year, she will have entirely given up her taste for
things old and curious, and have become curious to try something new and
comely; if, indeed, Coco shall have left her any money to indulge in
such a fancy.
On returning from this visit to our hotel, about an hour later, we found
Coco under the gateway, and on the look-out for us. _More solito_, he
had something to show us. The porter looked after us inquiringly, as we
bid him follow up-stairs; but was surprised by a counter look, and by
our calling him by his _name_. Even on the stairs, he could not forbear
sundry short ejaculations, by way of preparing us for what we were to
see presently. "_Ah! che bella roba!_ Ah, what flowers of the mint I
have brought you to see to-day!--bought for a song--at three Carlini
a-piece! You shall have them at three and a half--I content myself with
small gains. But you, sir, who are discreet, and know the value of these
things, shall judge whether I have told you a falsehood or no." By this
time we were in our room. The dirty bag was untied; and there leaped out
of it, not indeed a cat, but a large heap of consular coins, with which
we seemed forthwith to be vastly familiar; and no wonder; since, on
inspecting them, we found that the whole had been ours not twelve hours
before, we having disposed of them to a refiner for their weight in
silver, to melt. "Take them all, sir, _tutti quanti_, at three Carlines
and a half a-piece." "No; nor yet for two Carlines, Coco," said we,
putting the paper from us. Upon which the cunning fellow hoped _he_ had
not been taken in; having certainly purchased them in the persuasion of
reselling them, as a catch, to us. "The _Italian marquis_, of whom he
had bought them, assured him, on his honour, that he had made a rare
bargain with him." "Are the coins your own, Coco?" "To my cost are they,
signor, unless you re-purchase them." "I sold them only this morning,
Coco, for the weight of the silver; you must try somebody else." Upon
which Coco, with admirable presence of mind, replaced them in his bag,
and said "he had made a _mistake_!" "We regretted that he had not
purchased them from us at the rate of one Carline and a-half per piece;
in place of having been duped into paying three and a-half." Though he
saw plainly, from our manner, that we were aware of his roguery, he was
not put out; but shrugging his shoulders, and twitching the angles of a
mouth remarkable for its mobility, he merely said--"Pazienza! a
bargain's a bargain; we grow wiser as we grow older," and speedily
withdrew.